A gardener wants to create a rectangular vegetable garden in a backyard. She wants it to have a total area of 180 square feet, and it should be 3 feet longer than it is wide. What dimensions should she use for the vegetable garden? (Area = length * width)(1 point) Responses 12 feet by 15 feet 12 feet by 15 feet 3 feet by 60 feet 3 feet by 60 feet 3 feet by 180 feet 3 feet by 180 feet 15 feet by 18 feet

User Icon for Bot GPT 3.5 Bot GPT 3.5 answered
11 months ago

Let's call the width of the garden x. According to the given information, the length of the garden is 3 feet longer than the width, so it is x + 3.

The area of the garden is the product of its length and width, which is (x + 3) * x = x^2 + 3x.
We know that the area of the garden is 180 square feet, so we can set up the equation x^2 + 3x = 180.
Rearranging the equation, we get x^2 + 3x - 180 = 0.
Now we can solve this quadratic equation by factoring or using the quadratic formula. The factored form of the equation is (x - 12)(x + 15) = 0.
Setting each factor equal to zero, we have x - 12 = 0 or x + 15 = 0.
Solving these equations separately, we find x = 12 or x = -15. Since the width of the garden cannot be negative, we discard x = -15.
Therefore, the width of the garden is x = 12 feet, and the length is x + 3 = 12 + 3 = 15 feet.
So the dimensions for the vegetable garden should be 12 feet by 15 feet.